A very sad night

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Tonight I lost my drone :-( (Phantom 2 Visioin)

Its a very calm night and I though i Might do a distance test as tomorrow is going to be raining hard all day.

First flight tonight with my 6000mah http://www.flytrex.com/mission/quadcopter-phantom-2-vision-monster-andrew-lewis-nXlvYQAP/
Everything went fine. As it was dark I could see it till I clicked RTH.
She come back home buzzing like a heard of bees.

Changed the battery to my other 6000mah and off she went. My app told me that she had gone further than 2000m so kept on going (full FPV).
Decided to go until I had 8 mins flight time left, showing 13 mins at this point. So I had 5 mins flight left. Before I reached 8 mins flight time i decided to come back home. Clicked it to RTH and she made her way home. All of a sudden my phone went nutts and was telling me I only had 1% batt left. The last time I looked it told me I had 88% left. It went from 88% to 1% in seconds.

Up till tonight Ive been impressed with the 6000mah batts. I've spent thousands on this drone and it just dropped into the sea.

Stick to DJI

Cheers Andy
 
Yes I was. Updated this morning
 
jmcclung241 said:
Am I reading that right? You flew over a mile away and left yourself only 5 minutes to RTH?

Where can you c 5 mins to RTH?
 
Sorry you lost your Vision Lew. I know you've spent loads on this lately :(
 
Lew
I get this same result quite often with my stock DJI batts. 50% one instance and then BAM...5% and auto landing initiated.
My batteries are old though. Each over a year, so I have just thought they were beginning to falter. After reading this, however, I wonder if it's something else?!?
 
Sorry for the loss. It is frustrating that you spend all that time & $$ and watch it vanish into the sea.
 
All my batts were about 98%. Batts were all less than 2 months old. I think the one that was on it had been charged around 7 times.
 
Your experience is a tough one. I am somewhat experienced at long distance flights with the Phantom and do not recommend it to others nor plan to do more myself. The risks are just too high.

New Phantom pilots can learn a lot from your experience and should consider the following before doing a long distance mission. Do not assume that this is a complete list of things to think about. They do not even address safety concerns.

-Know that it is extremely risky doing long distance runs.
-Am I flying over an area where it is easy to recover my phantom when it does not make it back?
-Know the two or more conditions that cause Phantoms to go into auto-land.
-If my battery is in perfect conditon, approximately how many minutes of battery do I have to fly before it goes into auto-land?
-Know the best practices for battery care and conditioning.
-Know that there have been many, many reports of batteries failing to report correct % numbers. Do not rely solely on that number.
-What are the wind conditions at the level I will be flying. They are probably different than at ground level.
-It feels like there is no wind where I am standing. What are the implications if I am wrong?
-Can perfect flying conditions change in the next 10 minutes?
-What are the multiple downsides of flying using the RTH feature?
-Can I make it back in time in the RTH mode with the projected amount of remaining battery left before it goes into to auto-land?
-Know how fast the Phantom flies when I am flying in GPS mode?
-Know how fast the Phantom flies when I am in ATTI mode?
-Know how fast the Phantom flies when I am in RTH mode?
-Did I upgrade the Phantom software since I determined the above three values. If so, I need to redetermine those values relating to speed, time and distance.
-Under perfect conditions, how far can I safely go in any combination of the above three modes (GPS, ATTI, RTH)?
-Know that it is really risky flying over water since the recovery rate is extremely remote.
-Know that even if you recover your Phantom from water, you may still incur major damage to your battery and any electronic parts.
-Know that flying over and landing in salt-water could be even more damaging to the Phantoms electronic part.
-Is it more risky to conduct tests over water than over land?
-Do I have a unobstructed line of sight to my Phantom during the entire mission?
-What do I do or what can I do if or when I lose visual FPV signal or loss of telemetry data?
-What will my Phantom do if I lose signal to control my Phantom? Do I fully understand what it does and how long it takes to do those functions?
-If my Phantom does not make it back will I know the approximate position of where it stopped communicating or where it landed?
-Do I have a reliable tracking device?
-Do I have a DVR or recording of my numbers on the screen of my risky mission? These may help determine the location of where my Phantom is when it was last within communication.
-What other things could go wrong on this long distance mission?

In my opinion, even if you do your research you can expect a very sad experience when conducting long distance missions. The more long distance missions that you do, the higher the probability that you will be sad.
 
Vas Deferens said:
What kind of distances would you classify as "long distance"? Thanks.
It depends. But I would classify long distance missions ranging from 0.75 miles or over 1200 meters to 3.3 miles or 5300 meters.
This is on a non-vision Phantom 2.
 
Sorry to hear of the loss...I live on a lake and I sweat every time I even slightly get over the water.

I figure its best to avoid flying over water, as there are very few recoveries of water sunken craft.
And when they are recovered, most are complete rebuilds.
 
I upgraded the vision app before I flew mine yesterday. Seemed to work ok but at one point I got a message on the screen that said signal lost but it only went out for a few seconds. I was only about 200 feet away. Is there anyway to downgrade to the older app?

I dont like being so nervous flying this thing. I bought it to have fun with but if I am constantly worried about it failing it kind of takes the fun out of it.
I would also like to hear your take on how far is long distance.
 
RCRookie said:
Yes...Gunslinger has most older apps and revisons on his website. If you downgrade to a earlier app...MAKE SURE that app was released with your current revision or a mismatch might cause problems.

http://droneslinger.com/software.html

I have the latest version of the firmware. It was working fine with the dji vision app on my phone before I upgraded it on my iphone.
I was flying around a little today before it got windy and the app would close in camera everytime I tried to tilt my camera. It also closed a couple of times without me touching it.
 
Went out today to look for it and came back empty handed :)
Ill go for another look next weekend on the beach just in case.

Unfortunately I'll be leaving the Vision forum soon as I'm going for the Vision Plus next. When I get it I'm 100% guaranteed not to fly over the sea again.
 

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